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Rossami 22:16 May 6, 2003 (UTC)
Good afternoon, John. You are right that the honeybee page was linked above. Probably should delete the redundant link. I don't like leaving the "Diseases of the Honeybee" as a dead link, though. I am becoming more and more fond of a separate and expanded article on Diseases of the Honeybee. Let's make your link real. Unfortunately, I don't think I know enough about all the diseases to put something together without risking the breaking of a copyright. Can/will you take a crack at it?
Rossami 22:25 May 6, 2003 (UTC)
Good afternoon, John. You also added links to cell. When I clicked through it, I saw a number of definitions, none of which really seemed to apply to the cells in a beehive. When I checked the links to female and male, they were just definitions.
I see limited value to creating links to a definition rather than to a substantive article. What I remember of the Wikipedia rules seemed to reinforce that point. Frankly, when I need to check a definition, the freeware program Atomica works better than using Wikipedia to duplicate a dictionary. It's a philosophical point and if you feel strongly that the links add value, I'll concede.
I can see some possible value for male and female, especially if those articles might be improved in the future (though I must admit, I've been known to change links to reflect what's there at the moment, too), but yes, I could certainly live without those. As for cell, I figured that would be an issue while I was linking it, and I was thinking it might be best disambiguated somehow, even if that did leave it linked to a nonexistent page, but I wasn't sure how. Cell (honeybee)? Cell (honeycomb)? Cell (bee)? Etc. So I decided to just leave it at cell for the time being.
As for diseases of the honeybee (caps or not?), tracheal mites are about the only ones I'm familiar with, and that only from an apiarist's point of view (which basically amounts to "mites BAD!" ;), not a biologist's. So I couldn't do much there without considerable boning up. But leaving some nonexistent links isn't a bad thing, it encourages the creation of new articles, which can (almost) only be a good thing. :) -- John Owens 22:43 May 6, 2003 (UTC)
We need to add some information on bee sting allergy
I fail to see why this would belong here, given that most bee species do not sting humans. The place for information on sting allergies on the sting page. Dyanega01:20, 14 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
polarised light
I read on another article that polarised light may confuse bees, could we have some explanation why this is?
reversion
Anon User:66.28.223.150 deleted large sections of text without explanation and without moving the content to any other related page that I know about. Reverted pending explanation. Rossami 15:53, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
anecdote moved from the article page for now
This colony of bees in South Tampa, Florida took up residence in a bird house. I have observed bees in bird houses on three occations. As the colony grows it produces new queens and when space is limited the colony simply divides. A colony will divide many times in a year when the cavity they have nested in is small.
Either one article should cover all bees, or separate ones should cover honey bees , bumble bees, mason bees, etc. Since there is a separate article for bumble bees, this one should not be called simply bee. - erl - 216.19.218.15 19:04, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I was quite surprised to find no mention of the buzzing of bees. It's quite a characteristic thing, and many people would be surprised that it's not the wings creating the sounds. violet/riga(t)20:09, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It would be nice to have a section on the aerodynamics of bees in flight. On Sunday Image:Bee mid air.jpg is due to be the Picture of the day|Picture of the Day. However, at the moment I'm not too happy with the caption as it is a bit too general.
When I was at college, I recall hearing the adage that "aerodynamically, bees can't fly" and it seems to be one of those ideas that persists despite being completely untrue — not only can bees fly, but the aerodynamics of how they fly appears to have been pretty well understood for quite a while. There is a good summary of the problem on Straight Dope. More recently, I think that some research on Vortex streets has been directed towards the same issue (see for example the last external link there). -- Solipsist09:10, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Cuckoo bees are bumblebee look-alikes that invade bumblebee nests and lay their eggs. The bumblebees raise the young as their own. Megachilid bees also have other megachilid Coelioxys bees whose young are placed into the already provisioned nests of these solitary bees. They destroy the host larvae and eat the food.--Gbleem06:27, 30 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Honey
The detiled information on Honey should not be shown in this article, it should be referenced to the stand-alone article.
Honey Bee population: help me with my math
The article states three facts:
Hives have a population of 40,000 bees or fewer.
The queen lays at least 1000 eggs per day to replenish casualties.
A honey bee lives three months, longer during the winter.
If a queen lays 1000 eggs per day; a bee lives three months; and bees die only of natural causes, a hive would have a maximum population of 90,000 bees, more than double the estimated peak hive population.
There are a few possible explanations to reconcile these numbers, at least one of which should be further explored to better capture a typical hive's lifecycle. They are, I presume, any combination of the following:
'Daily casualties' includes many hazards that cause premature death.
The queen lays fewer than a thousand eggs per day on average.
There are periods during the summer when the population spikes.
The average bee life span is shorter than three months, and there are periods during the winter with little to no egg laying when bees tend to live closer to their three month maximum life span.
I defer to bee scholars. (That is, experts on bees, not educated bees.)
There is no simple math, as there is considerable variability. Queens lay at the maximum rate in spring during the buildup time, with the peak population occurring at the end of that time. The population may then drop drastically if the hive swarms, but good honeybee management aims to prevent swarming (analagous to having your calves run off to get lost in the woods). For honey production the beekeeper aims to have a very large population of adults and sealed brood at the beginning of the honeyflow, but of course no swarming. The queens can then cut back on egg laying, and indeed will be forced to cut back if cells are filled with nectar as quickly as new bees emerge from the cells. If queens are "shut down" by a honey flow, the beekeeper has not placed enough supers and the hive "plugs out" which is also poor beekeeping. At the end of the honeyflow the hive will consist of entirely old (and usually rather mean bees) and the hive population will crash severely. Better management has the queen merely slow down, keeping some young brood coming.
The cycles of queen laying and hive population are quite variable depending on the area, the race of bees, and whether honeyflows come normally or not. Drought, heavy rain, a cold spell, etc, can all have an effect. In some areas a serious honeyflow may only last for a couple weeks out of the entire year, and bees may have a time just maintaining their weight for the rest of the year.
For pollination contracts, beekeepers usually do not produce honey at the same time; indeed a honeyflow can be a problem during pollination. It is desired to have the bees with a pretty good population, but still early enough in the buildup period that there is a lot of open, unsealed brood. This means the bees will be compelled to seek pollen for brood feed, and they will be much more efficient as pollinators. A bee that deliberately is gathering pollen can be as much as ten times more efficient as a pollinator than one that is gathering nectar.
It is a good beekeeper who knows the cycles well, and plans for his productive periods, to make the most efficient use of the hives.
Queens also will greatly reduce laying whenever there is a pollen shortage, there is cooling temperature, or likely as the sun moves lower in the sky with autumn. In colder areas the queen will entirely shut down during early winter and the only bees that carry on are the adults that began the winter season. Winter bees are physiologically different than the bees from the rest of the year, so they do live quite a bit longer. Population may drop quite a bit during winter. The first heavy flight during a warm late winter day may leave a lot of these old bees dead on the snow in front of hives and inexperienced beekeepers may be frightened by the loss. However, usually these are bees that have gone through the winter and have been used up in getting a new cycle started. When they go out to fly, it is simply their final flight and they are dying outside the hive for sanitation. Pollinator21:37, 18 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
recent edits about Honeybee Queens
Anonymous user:69.31.222.151 recently added some text about honeybee queens. I've cleaned it up and corrected some factual errors. After doing all that, however, I'm no longer sure that this is the best article for this level of detail. Would it be better in honeybee? in queen (bee)? somewhere else?
By the way, I was adding several tidbits from memory. I don't have any of my source materials handy. Please correct it if I misremembered something. Rossami(talk)20:12, 19 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Laying workers
I restored the comment about honeybee workers sometimes laying infertile eggs. That phenomenon is well known and understood. I do wonder, however, if this page is getting too much detail about honeybees specifically and whether most of it ought to be siphoned off the the honeybee article. Rossami(talk)22:40, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Cap vs Seal
What is the difference between cap and seal? (in the text about honeybee queens : "At pupation the workers cap or seal the cell.") Olango22:34, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Then shouldn't one of them be removed here? BTW: not impervious because mixed with pollen, unlike on honey stores capped with pure beeswax. Olango01:16, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No. They're synonyms when used in this sense. But it's not an obvious synonym so it makes sense to use the words in a way that teach readers how the terms are used. Not sure whay you meant with the second part of your comment (starting BTW:). I have never read that the bees add pollen when capping brood chambers. And neither is completely impervious to air or moisture. Rossami(talk)03:24, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I greatly appreciate your clarifying, as my native language is not English. Thank you and hope for help in the future :) As for capping brood cells, I meant it IS "not impervious", otherwise brood would suffocate, of course. That is the purpose of adding pollen to wax. I guess I should give some English-written source but I do not have any within reach. I thought this fact was not controversial and well known. It should be easy findable in any beekeeping textbook (as well as the phenomenon of laying workers :) Anyway, I will search by myself to cite references asap. Olango (talk)22:35, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Moved from page for discussion
Beard of Bees
The tradition of wearing a 'beard of bees' is one which has been popularised recently, possibly due to the revival in the fortunes of the Guinness Book of Records. Traditionally, the bee beard was formed by placing the queen honeybee in a box, and taping this box to the chin, but in recent years, a pheromone-laced disc is often used instead. The bees will swarm around the queen (or disc) and are shaped into a beard by a groomer. Bee beards can contain about half a million bees, and cover a body length of over a metre.
It would be helpful if someone could find out how it is that queens can lay so many eggs in a day--sometimes more than their own bodyweight, & add this info. What do they take in to be able to put out so much? And what is the size of an egg relative to her body? The Queen bee page would be the best place to add this content--Funhistory01:33, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Varroa- First Aid bee
aren't there bees within som beefolks wich are like some doctor bees wich actually can remove these mites from bees. if some one knows about that but it here — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.183.227.70 (talk)
Varroa- formic acid
to kill these mites imkers can use formic acid(that stuff from the ants) evaporated in the hive — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.183.227.70 (talk)
There's nothing about it in the Honeybee article either. The only reference I can find is in this article, and the information is still very limited. -- Run!09:40, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sutiable photo?
BEE!
Hi, I don't know much about bees nor am I really interested. However, a large number of bees are in my backyard collecting pollen from a tree. I took a photo of one of them. If you want to add it, it is here Image:Bee flying hamedog.JPG. There is a small thumb on the right too. If you add it to a page, please tell me on my talk page.--HamedogTalk|@06:38, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Only likable insect?
this line: "annoying or disgusting pests, humans hold bees in high regard, possibly the only insect species to be considered such." seems wrong to me. Humans like butterflys, grasshoppers, ladybugs that I can think of. Dragonflies too. I'm definitely no expert on insects, and maybe all these have solid reasons for exclusion (perhaps grasshoppers aren't so popular in areas of the world that still suffer locust plagues) but it seems untrue and unencyclopedic. --FNV18:34, 23 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Suggestion for External Link(s)
The below link has a lot of useful informatino that should be considered for inclusion into the external link list:
I've put this article in WikiProject Beekeeping to help organisation and improvement of articles. I'm just trying to rustle up interest - if anyone is interested in being a member, please just sign up on the main project page - you can do as much or little as you like! Martinp2317:06, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Bee Neurology
Anyone out there know what goes on deep inside a bees mind? if you do please post a section on its neural pathway. I'm doing a research project and it is on simple insects, if I end up doing it on bees, I'll post my research findings on here Paskari16:27, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Virtually all such research is on Apis mellifera - accordingly, if you do wish to post any such information, please do so in (or linked to) the article for that species, and NOT to the "bee" article. Thanks. Dyanega18:41, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Bee evolution
Would it be more accurate to say that bees and wasps share the same evolutionary link, instead of saying, "The oldest bee fossil, of the genus Melittosphex, is 100 million years old and supports the theory that bees evolved from wasps [1]"? BTW, I just checked the wasp site, noticing it has nothing about its evolution. Looks like it could use some work. Brian Pearson01:58, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think what the former phrase is saying is that wasps came first, whereas your proposed change suggests bees and wasps had a common ancestor. I support the former phrase, as per the new DNA findings. Dionyseus05:43, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wasps are not a single lineage. "Wasp" is an artificial term for an artifical grouping - but the insects that bees evolved from were among the wasps. Dyanega19:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Bees and drunkeness
I heard in a documentary that some bees become notorious drunks and are kept out of the hives by "bee bouncers" until they sober up. When the bees are repeat offenders, the bee bouncers might punish them by chewing their legs off. Comments?--Filll16:54, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I also came for this information and I think many people probably have. Someone with the information should add a section to the article on this subject, no one is going to stumble upon it at Pollinator decline. --71.71.221.10721:10, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Then you are all looking in the wrong place. CCD does not affect "bees". It affects Western honey bees. This article HAS a link to CCD, and that is all that is appropriate: a link. It is like insisting that the page for mammal have a paragraph on Tourette's Syndrome, even though only one species of mammal (humans) has this disorder. Yes, it is true, human beings are mammals - but if something is specific to humans, it is NOT appropriate to devote space to it in the mammal article. There is likewise no reason to devote space in the bee article to something that only affects one species. If anything, it is even LESS appropriate, given that there are about three times as many bee species as there are mammal species. Dyanega21:26, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am reporting a shortage of bees in Sapulpa, OK. I am a truck farmer - I have blackberry plants in bloom - and I only saw one honey bee yesterday. We had one early bloom due to heat, lots of bumble bees around the wysteria and then a freeze. We need all the pollinators we can get. I am supposed to get two hives from a buddy of my husbands that he works with - which cannot be moved in rainy weather - husband should be contacting his bee buddy to help us out. Nation wide, lack of bees could lead to very high food prices - are bees alive in other countries? I am donna vogelpohl, sapulpa, ok - locally listed under husband's name - david.
Removal of Einstein quote
I've removed the following quote from the article:
Albert Einstein: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." [2]
According to Walter Isaacson, the author of a biography of Albert Einstein called Einstein: His Life and Universe, "Einstein may have said something about bees, but I don't know about it if he did."[3]
And that proves what? One (American) biographer doesn't know about 1 Einstein's quote, and therefore it is false ???? His quote was cited in German journal Der Kritischer Agrarbericht by a German scientist. I guess Germans know better their celebrities. Are you sure your favorite biographer read all documents in German regarding Einstein?Lakinekaki17:13, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I guess it depends on what you consider adequate sourcing for material. If one secondary source is enough for Wikipedia, then by all means, this quote should be restored. Henryhartley17:29, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Just a note, you removed this material with reliable secondary source based on your unreliable blog Mark Turner's claim of correspondence with yet another secondary source. Lakinekaki18:35, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I note the irony of your willingness to accept a quote supposedly attributed to Dr. Einstein for which no supporting documentation can be found over a direct quote I obtained from an expert on Dr. Einstein, biographer Walter Isaacson. My emailed response from Mr. Isaacson nevertheless constitutes more proof than anything that has thus far been discovered to support Einstein's alleged bee quote. I suggest you do more through research before questioning mine. --Jmturner19:19, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It takes only little effort and will to find other sources. For example, I have no knowledge of German language, and to understand how little knowledge I have, I just learned that German language is actually called Deutsch by looking at other languages on the left of Bee page. So, I learned also that bee in Deutsch is called biene, and i did CTRL+f search in the page for albert, and found 1 which was not einstein. So I searched in google 'biene albert einstein', and, o my, thousands of sources! I easily found the whole quotation by finding some similarity between english and german, ups deutsch words (some genetics/molecular words are similar, so i guessed the topic of citation similar as above source): Wenn die Biene von der Erde verschwindet, dann hat der Mensch nur noch vier Jahre zu leben. Keine Bienen mehr, keine Bestäubung mehr, keine Pflanzen mehr, keine Tiere mehr, keine Menschen mehr. Albert Einstein
I also looked for more reputable sources, as first appeared to be a blog, and yes! I found it. [4] url 'sounded' reputable, and it seems to be some university news source.
Wenn die Biene von der Erde verschwindet, dann hat der Mensch nur noch vier Jahre zu leben; keine Bienen mehr, keine Bestäubung mehr, keine Pflanzen mehr, keine Tiere mehr, keine Menschen mehr
Translation:
If the bee of the earth disappears, then humans have only four years to live; no more bees, no more dusting, no more plants, no more animals, no more humans
is very similar to original quote in english as translated by human:
If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man
And translation back to german gives again something similar, but not exact to the starting quote - indication that quote indeed originated in german, and not english that is translated to german (as there are many more english sites).
Wenn die Biene der Masse verschwindet, dann haben Menschen nur vier Jahre, zum zu leben; keine mehr Bienen, kein mehr Abstauben, keine mehr Betriebe, keine mehr Tiere, keine mehr Menschen
Without this altavista checks, it took me 2 minutes to find sources. I would really be happy to see other editors at least try find sources for information they doubt, then just remove. Lakinekaki18:05, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Snopes.com are taking an "untermined" stance on the quote, http://www.snopes.com/quotes/einstein/bees.asp Until it can be found in Einstein's writings and not just quoted it should be removed. Unable to detect username
So, who has more weight, Snopes that provides only English references, or German University's article [5] It seems as if I need to highlight here that Einstein was a German! Lakinekaki07:02, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with the German article is that it just tacks the quote on the end without sourcing where or when it was said. It is not unheard of reputable sources to be taken in by bad information or a mis-quote. The Snopes article is researched and finds no mention of the quote prior 1994 where it was quoted in French during protest by bee keepers.
Disapperaring Bees, Part Deux
Wanted to put out the call for a seasoned writer to add a chapter on this. The Colony Collapse Disorder page is sweet, but where is it on the Bees page? Michaeljwsiegel23:31, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It is linked to on this page, but as it does not affect 99.999% of the world's bees, it is not appropriate to discuss it here. CCD affects ONE species of honey bee, it does not affect bees in general. I, and the other seasoned writers, keep things where they belong. Dyanega17:51, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I came to this page looking for something on the disappearing bees, found nothing and went to look on the talk page to find a link to the info I wanted. It seems like there may be enough people doing that to warrant a header so they are directed straight to that information.IMFromKathlene02:03, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Let me ask a question, and I would like you to think about it carefully: do you go to the mammal article and expect to find a header there linking you to the AIDS article? Humans are, after all, the most well-known mammal on the planet. So why isn't every disease that affects humans also listed at the top of the mammal page? Maybe because the mammal page is the place to talk about things that apply to mammals in general, and not just humans? There are some 20,000 species of bees, and colony collapse disorder affects exactly ONE of those species - the Western honey bee - and that one species already has some 20 WP pages devoted solely to it, its biology, its behavior, its management, and its diseases. This particular article is not about that species. This article is about ALL bees, and if this were something that affected ALL bees, then it would deserve a discussion here. Otherwise, it merits only a link, and this page does indeed have a link to CCD, so if you "found nothing" it's because you simply missed it. Dyanega06:07, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
AIDS has a keyword (or two, both HIV and AIDS). "CCD" is not a keyword yet-- I just wanted info on disappearing bees. No one would logically look up "mammal" trying to find information on AIDS, they would look up AIDS or HIV. You have to keep how people use information in mind, not just the most logical way to sort it-- people aren't logical. I don't have the article with me (it's in my work inbox, so I can get it Friday), but there's this fantastic piece on how people use the internet. They scan pages for what they want, they click on links, but they don't read every piece of information on a page when they're only searching for one thing. I "simply missed it" because there wasn't anything I recognized as a header related to the subject I was looking for in the places I looked in. IMFromKathlene02:03, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The lead paragraph of colony collapse disorder today reads in part "It was originally apparently limited to colonies of the Western honey bee in North America[1], but European beekeepers have recently claimed to be observing a similar phenomenon in Poland and Spain, with initial reports coming in from Switzerland and Germany, albeit to a smaller degree[2]." Bee is a fine article, but most people will be coming here to find out more about why America's bees are disappearing, not to learn how many segments are in a bee's antennae. This is a current event of great interest to John Q. Public. I suggest that a one or two-sentence reference to CCD be added to the Bee lead paragraph or immediately following it. Thank you. --CliffC17:52, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
AIDS is also a current event of great interest to John Q. Public. But it does not deserve to be at the top of the mammal article, any more than Colony Collapse Disorder belongs at the top of the bee article. If I interpret your statement correctly as to why people are coming to this page, then they are coming here for the wrong reason (i.e., because John Q. Public thinks there is only one bee species in existence). That, I would argue, is all the more reason to EDUCATE such readers that there are many bee species - and it would be misleading to include a header on colony collapse disorder because that would imply, incorrectly, that this phenomenon affects bees in general. For example, your statement "America's bees are disappearing" is misleading, sensationalist hyperbole. Not one bee species native to the Western Hemisphere ("the Americas") is affected by CCD. The statement should be "European honey bees being kept by beekeepers in America are disappearing" - and even that is misleading, because there are thousands of beekeepers all over the US whose colonies are doing just fine. There are SOME beekeepers who are losing colonies, and what the scientists are trying to do right now is figure out why THOSE colonies are dying, and not all the others. Just because the mass media cannot keep things in perspective does not mean Wikipedia has to fall into the same trap. Dyanega20:26, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What would the community think of putting something at the beginning of the Bee article like This article is about bees in general. For Western honey bee see related article about that specific bee. I admit, I'm not crazy about it since there are lots of bees that people will accidentally come here for. Still, I suspect this is the most common mistake. Henryhartley20:49, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If people don't know, in advance, that the Western honey bee is the only species affected by CCD, then they won't know that the Western honey bee article is the one they were looking for; the only way to find that out is to read this article - and CCD most definitely IS mentioned in this article! It seems odd that it should be considered an imposition on a reader to actually be asked to read the article. Anyone who reads the article will see the link to CCD, discussed where it should be, under pollination, because that is the only real impact it has. Dyanega23:42, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A primary goal of Wikipedia, or any reference work, should be easy access to the information sought. I think we editors sometimes lose sight of who the vast majority of our users are. They are not our fellow editors, engineers and scientists. They are Joe Sixpack, his wife and their children. If we know a subject has great currency in the popular media, why wouldn't we make information on that subject as easy to find as possible?
Dyanega says people "won't know that the Western honey bee article is the one they were looking for; the only way to find that out is to read this article" -- no, that statement is only true if we make it be true. People who come to Bee because theyr'e wondering about those "disappearing" Bees will have no idea that CCD is the term they're looking for, and won't know the Western honey bee from their elbow. Why make them wade though an entire article to find a link they probably won't even recognize once they get to it? That's not helpful.
Let's put the information we know people are most interested in up front, where they can find it right away. Let's simply insert, immediately after the first paragraph, a statement similar to Recently there has been a great deal of media attention given to the subject of the so-called "disappearing" bee population of the United States and some European countries. To learn more about that subject, please see Colony Collapse Disorder. That would be helpful. --CliffC01:35, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I can see your point, and as long as you have no objection to my altering it to be a little more precise, then I'll insert just such a comment. Dyanega05:34, 2 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
User:Madchester removed our agreed-on text, with edit summary "fix per WP:LEAD". A short discussion of his objections can be found at User talk:Madchester. I have now couched the missing CCD information as a {{For}} template, in the hopes that this will satisfy the requirements and people involved. --CliffC02:51, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
range and climate?
It would be nice if the artical had some info about the range and climate of various bees. (unsigned by User:74.79.174.201)
The range was already included at the top of the page (everywhere except Antarctica) - I presume by climate you meant habitat, so I added that. Dyanega08:48, 3 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Royal Jelly
Royal jelly is not mentioned once in the article, I would put it in but I do not know where it should go.
Please do not. It does not belong in this article, as only 7 species out of 20,000 produce it. It is already linked on the Honey bee page, where it belongs. Dyanega20:54, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Bee 'hibernation'
I removed this edit to the miscellaneous section by an IP user since it lacks a citation and is not written in a style befitting an encyclopedia:
"If you sedate a North American honeybee with smoke and put it in a freezer, you can take it out weeks later and it will come back to life, unharmed."
I've heard conflicting conflicting accounts of how bees navigate, namely from one source that they use radio waves (citing speculation that mobile phone masts have caused them disorientation) and from another that they use the sun. Which is true? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.189.32.65 (talk) 14:23, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
First, I'm assuming that you're asking about honeybees and specifically of Western honeybees. That's the predominantly studied species among all the families of bees. Very little research has been done on other species. If that's the case, the radio story is junk. There was one study about cell phone base stations which, when placed inside the hive caused some minor effects. The study has been criticized on many grounds including 1) the unrealistic assumption that anyone would place a base station actually inside a living colony and 2) that the "measured" effects failed to properly control for the normal factors and behaviors of bee colonies. The reported results could be equally well explained (and in fact are better explained) by susceptibility to parasitic varroa mites. Western honeybees have three "eyes" on the top of their heads which they use to orient on the sun during the long-distance legs of their journey. These light sensors are tuned in such a way that they can get an accurate sighting even through fairly heavy cloud cover. The bees orient on a combination of visual and olfactory cues at the end-points of the trip. Rossami(talk)16:33, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Should a page be made for bee larvae? On the larvae page there is a link to this non-existant page. Or should information on larvae be added and the link come back to this page instead? (ApostleJoe (talk) 13:32, 4 January 2008 (UTC))[reply]
There is nothing unusual or different about bee larvae, and no reason to create a separate page; the non-existent link was to a word not used in English, and has been corrected. Bee larvae are called either "grubs" or "larvae" in English, as are ant larvae, wasp larvae, and beetle larvae. Dyanega (talk) 21:28, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
These are some amazing photos. I'd like to congratulate all the people who worked on making this such a vivid article. Especially on a HiDef monitor :). Phillip Shaw (talk) 05:59, 3 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
